Emery decided to rest till his injuries were healed completely. Had it been a year ago when everything was still normal, injuries as severe as his would have taken several weeks to heal, but with the powers and Awakened now it only took about three days.
In that time, he met Elyn a few times to simply talk with her, but enough of that. He was leaving. They had 75k from their original money. Chris hadn't charged them for their usage of the hospital so that was good.
He wasn't quite sure what to do with the money, but he had a few things in mind.
They had gotten clothes from Hemp's personal reserves– at least that was what Chris told him– so there really wasn't any need to buy clothes.
Normal clothes, at least. Emery didn't plan on getting injured any further so perhaps some defensive armour wouldn't hurt.
'I wonder if I'll be able to find an enhanced kitchen knife as well?'
A knife was the only 'weapon' he could use, even though it was just a kitchen knife. But as long as it worked, he would be able to find something.
Chris got someone to open an account for him and transferred all the money in there, so he could use it however he wanted. It looks like in the time he'd spent roaming the streets new developments had happened.
In just one year, several new technologies were developed to replace the ones that died along with the old world.
Emery sighed a little. When the apocalypse struck he was fresh out of college with no job and skills anyone anywhere was looking for. After that, he'd managed to survive five months by working odd jobs here and there.
That was around the time Carlos and Hemp came into power, leaving him stranded with nowhere to stay and no one to work for.
Word of some of his cooking skills reached Carlos and the man didn't give up, resorting to… unsavoury methods to get what he wanted
Everything after was a blur, and rightfully so.
'How the hell did I miss the launch of a new type of phone for the apocalypse?'
He thought it over for a while and concluded that it made sense.
The phone was only given to Awakened so that made sense as to why he didn't know about it.
He popped the hood onto his head as a sudden gust of wind passed over him. It was chilly outside today. He was dressed in casual clothes and held a small, blocky touchscreen phone in his hands.
Where was Elyn? He got his answer soon enough as the girl approached from another door in the hallway.
Her long white hair was packed up into a small ponytail that hung above the dark leather jacket she wore. She wore a purple shirt underneath, black jeans and a pair of white sneakers to finish off the combination.
"You look good," Emery admitted.
He was a chef, not an introvert.
"Thank you, Em!" the girl chirped, moving closer to him.
'Em, that's a new nickname. I don't mind it. But gotta stay focused, can't be distracted.'
"Remember what I told you that day?"
Elyn nodded. "About us killing some beasts?"
"Yeah, that. What do you say we go kill some today? I learned a lot of things from the last fights that I want to try out, plus some other things."
"Sure!" she chirped again. "But when are you gonna cook again, Em? That food they gave us sucked."
Emery fell into a small daze. Her vocabulary really had grown far wider than before. In 4 days, she went from not being able to speak a single word to picking up on slang and unspoken grammar rules.
'Man, this system is wonderful.'
He smiled at the cute girl. "I'll cook the first edible thing I manage to kill. I also got some spices from Chris after I told him what I did."
Elyn pumped her fist up into the air just slightly, "I'm so hungyyyy"
"Yeah, come on. Let's go," he said, walking towards the exit of the makeshift hospital. Afterwards, they made their way past the wide shop area and out of the building.
It was bright. Days sitting inside made him averse to the sudden light, but he got used to it quickly.
He stared at the bright wall of text that said these words:
[Would you like to summon now?!]
It was hard to resist the urge to do it all these days but Emery was able to manage. He also didn't want to summon directly in front of Hemp's buildings, where spies and cameras would undoubtedly be watching him.
So he silently walked for a while towards the area with the largest concentration of Beasts according to Chris.
It was a few hundred metres away from Hemp's building so in that time he made a bit of conversation with Elyn. She was so unbelievably… cute!
He couldn't put a finger on it, but she reminded him of something.
Emery waved those thoughts away when they finally came upon the massive congregation of Beasts.
It was indeed as weird as Chris mentioned. The beasts in the area were far too much than he heard was normal. None of them didn't get into fights with each other, something that should have been far more common with beasts.
'There's time to think about that later, Emery. I need to stay focused!'
"You ready, Elyn?" he asked, getting ready to accept the request to summon.
"Yeah!"
"Okay, well here I go."
[Ding!]
[Summoning taking place in…
5
4
3
2
1]
SWISSSH~!
A bright light emerged a few metres from where he stood and lasted for a few seconds. Emery had no choice but to look away until the summoning was completed and when it was finished, he had no idea what to feel about it.
'What the hell am I looking at?'
*****
Author's Note: What do you think was summoned xD hehehe.